Jessica Rosenworcel, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) addressed for the second year in a row the Satellite Industry Association at the Annual Leadership Dinner being held at the Washington Satellite 2024 event. She told delegates how the FCC’s new Space Bureau, established just a year previous, was now issuing licences for lunar communications, […]
The Federal Communications Commission has adopted new rules requiring cable and satellite TV providers to specify the ‘all-in’ price clearly and prominently for video programming service in their promotional materials and on subscribers’ bills. The FCC aims to eliminate the misleading practice of describing video programming costs as a tax, fee, or surcharge. This updated […]
Project Kuiper is planning its own mega-constellation and has already raised concerns about SpaceX’s proposed occupation of the 604 and 614 kms orbits. Amazon’s Project Kuiper has written to the FCC complaining about a SpaceX request to adjust the altitude of 7,500 satellites previously authorised to operate at altitudes of 525, 530 and 535 kms, […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has approved a SpaceX request to fit 7,500 of its satellites with E-band frequencies. The 7,500 are not extra satellites but are within the wider deployment of planned Starlink ‘Gen-2’ craft. SpaceX proposes to operate in the E-band for communications between satellites and gateway earth stations. The FCC order states: […]
The Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA) has congratulated the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on its decision to authorise Automatic Frequency Coordination (AFC) systems in the 6 GHz band to enable standard power devices to access 850 MHz of spectrum and support a wide range of enterprise and consumer broadband services in the US. AFC systems maximise […]
CommScope, a player in network connectivity, today announced that its Comsearch spectrum management business has received FCC certification for the commercial deployment of its AFC (automated frequency coordination) system supporting unlicensed 6 GHz standard power and fixed client devices. This certification allows Comsearch AFC to open up 850 MHz of 6 GHz spectrum for shared, FCC-compliant […]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has published its proposed framework which could allow satellite operators to use spectrum from terrestrial cellular businesses for their smartphone connections, and when beyond the reach of conventional mobile towers. Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC chair, says the final draft of rules have been sent to the regulator’s other four Commissioners that, […]
SpaceX has informed the FCC of its plans to expand its current broadband-by-satellite service to include Text and ultimately Voice services. On February 13th SpaceX wrote to the FCC saying it wanted to take another step towards realising the FCC’s own vision of a ‘Single Network Future’ which would bring ubiquitous mobile connectivity to consumers […]
Currently SpaceX’s Starlink system dominates satellite-based broadband and the potential for ‘direct-to-device’ (MSS: Mobile Satellite Service) communications. However, Globalstar is rolling out its smaller constellation and has Apple helping finance its expansion. The initial problem is that both outfits use the same frequencies (as does Dish Network). SpaceX formally complained to the FCC on February […]
Officials from satellite company AST SpaceMobile met with FCC officials on December 14th 2023 over a potential problem with its frequency registrations. AST is building a super-constellation of satellites with the intention of supply a ‘direct-to-smartphone’ service. AT&T, Vodafone and Google are investors in the company. AST is using Papua New Guinea (PNG) as its […]